03:25 am - Hopeful Job News2008 was my best year financially (although only slightly better than 2007, which was also excellent), and both were also years where I wrote many absolutely wonderful RPG books, and the first half of 2009 was equally good - if an RPG company was 3 or 4 months late in paying me, I bothered them about the money, but not because I had any immediate need for it - I regularly had 4-6 months of my (admittedly rather meager) living expenses in the bank and could regularly purchase fancy clothing, imported hardback books, and similar items. Then, major changes at White Wolf (who had previously provided me with at least 75% of my work for the past 4 years), combined with a near total lack of payment by Catalyst Games utterly tanked my finances, and the recent and rather impressive cat medical expenses put me in debt to Alice and Becca. My savings have been spent, and my financial position is about as bad as it was 12 or 13 years ago - survivable, but just barely, and with much stress and worry.

However, things are finally looking up. I recently finished a project for an excellent and rapidly growing company that has another project to offer me, another company has two projects for me - one soon, and one in a few months, and I just contacted a third company (who I'd contacted several times a few years ago with no useful result) and it looks likely that I'll also get work from them. Also, Eclipse Phase is no longer licensed to Catalyst Games, and will hopefully soon have a new home with a company that will presumably pay me and the other freelancers. It finally looks possible that in six months I'll be doing far better than I am now. It's clear that I won't be making as much as I was 2 years ago, but even 80% of it is enough to do acceptably well.Current Mood:hopeful

What I've been hearing about what actually went on at Catalyst has been amazingly bad, in the sense that the problem was more than simply someone stealing from the company. However, Eclipse Phase is a remarkably popular game and the developer (who licensed the game to Catalyst, but is in no way associated with them) is a very cool individual and so I expect this all to work out, just not for at least several months.

High deductible private insurance for me, which given that essentially any office visit is a $25 copay, doesn't suck particularly much (unless I was hit by a car or something similarly drastic). Alice used to have the same plan as I do, but now has insurance through her school since she has gone back to school. Becca has none (despite being by far the most lucratively employed of us).

In 2014, I'll be paying something like 1/3 to 1/4 what I am now for healthcare, and from the sound of it, also won't have a large (if any) deductable, so that will be very nice indeed.